Tango Town

“What’s new, Buenos Aires?” asks narrator Che in the musical Evita. Latin America’s coolest capital has the spirit of old Europe plus a vibrant new-world outlook of its own.

Buenos Aires has been called “the Paris of the Pampas.” And a visit to its historic neighborhoods—with their grand boulevards, gilded opera house, pedimented cathedral and Beaux-Arts buildings—proves the nickname fits. But the path to recovery from Argentina’s 2001 economic meltdown, in which the peso was devalued 300 percent, left this city less interested in being like Europe and more concerned with being itself.

“What’s new, Buenos Aires?” asks narrator Che in the musical Evita. One answer is found in the Faena Hotel + Universe, a five-star property built by Argentine fashion designer cum property developer Alan Faena in Puerto Madero—a 15-block, one-mile stretch of docklands and brick buildings that lines the Río de la Plata riverbank, the city’s historic port. Built into a hundred-year-old granary and designed by French designer Philippe Starck, the seven-story, 100-room hotel combines chiaroscuro, luxury and whimsy. it features a 33-foot stained-glass entrance, soccer fields of red velvet, legions of white empire-style furniture and guest rooms with city-skyline vistas.

There’s a library lounge with comfy chesterfields and fauteuils; restaurants El Mercado (serving traditional Argentine cuisine) and Bistro Sur (with eye-popping interiors of white and gold); and El Cabaret, a performance space inspired by 1920s Buenos Aires that serves as the venue for Rojo Tango, one of the city’s best-reviewed presentations of the Argentine dance form—it’s on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

Set foot outside the hotel, and you’ll find the intriguing barrio of Puerto Madero, the product of the largest urban renewal project in the city’s history. It boasts everything from university buildings to cozy restaurants and bars (coffee and otherwise), as well as the elegant and ultra-modern Puente de la Mujer (Women’s Bridge) by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. A smattering of new galleries and museums have also appeared in Puerto Madero, including the six-year-old Fortabat Art Collection, which features classic Argentine artists alongside international masters like Dali and Rodin, and the four-year-old Faena Arts Center, an exhibition space for contemporary art.

From the Faena Hotel + Universe, it’s a short walk to San Telmo, the city’s oldest barrio. Full of 19th-century buildings and cobblestone streets, it too has been renovated and reconceived in the last decade, but not at the expense of its atmosphere. Its center, the Plaza Dorrego, is the home of a popular Sunday milonga, a chance for both locals and tourists to engage in Argentina’s passionate tango. Around the square, the city has received a face-lift: Where there was once a tobacco warehouse there is now a museum of contemporary art, and where there were seedy bars and boarded up mansions there are fascinating art galleries, fashion boutiques and the city’s biggest flea market.

Palermo, a short cab ride from Puerto Madero, had begun to attract urban explorers and colonizers to its mixed-use spaces even before the economic crisis, and the trend has only accelerated since. Its oldest section, Palermo Viejo, has as its center the small Plazoleta Cortázar (named after Argentine writer Julio Cortázar) and is divided by railroad tracks into two areas: Palermo Soho, one of the city’s shopping hot spots, and Palermo Hollywood, so called because of the many TV and radio producers who moved there in the mid-1990s.

In the luxe Recoleta neighborhood, visitors saunter past late 19th-century neoclassical chateaux, homes to foreign embassies and the country’s elite, en route to the National Museum of Fine Arts (with its collection of Argentine artists such as Antonio Berni, Eduardo Schiaffino and Alfredo Guttero); the National Museum of Decorative Arts and its trove of 4,000 objects, including paintings by El Greco; the Recoleta Cultural Center, with ever-changing exhibitions and concerts; or the Recoleta Cemetery, the last stop for First Lady Eva Perón and many other luminaries.

Facing the cemetery, in what’s called the Plaza Francia, the visitor finds what looks like a lush forest but is instead a single massive rubber tree called El Gran Gomero. At the Plaza Francia is the Feria, an open-air market featuring local artisans selling handbags, ceramics and other objets d’art. Branching off from here, one can trace the perambulations of writer Jorge Luis Borges, who lived on Quintana Avenue; or shop at international boutiques, including Vuitton, Armani and Hermès.

The nearby Microcento and Plaza de Mayo have historically served as the political, financial and religious heart of the city. Flanked by the Casa Rosada, the pink presidential palace, and the Metropolitan Cathedral, the Plaza de Mayo borders the financial district. Punctuated by the May Pyramid, the city’s oldest national monument, the Plaza has been the site of innumerable demonstrations and protests. Nearby resides Café Tortoni, the nation’s oldest coffee house (north of 150 years), which boasts a first-rate tango show; the acclaimed seafood restaurant Dora; and La Estancia, a gaucho meat lover’s paradise.

A phoenix rising again? That’s Buenos Aires, which has managed to redefine its future while not forgetting its past. Bienvenidos!